ArticleScientific reports2023
Daily exposure to virtual nature reduces symptoms of anxiety in college students.
Article in Scientific reports, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT06028360 (The Effect of Virtual Reality), which is not on this map. Cited by 23 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
The Effect of Virtual Reality (VR) and Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) in Stress Management Among Physiotherapy Students
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A systematic literature review and meta-analysis of virtual reality nature effects on higher education students' mental health and wellbeing.Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2025Pooled it
- The efficacy of music therapy in alleviating anxiety among college students: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Pooled it
- Personalized Virtual Reality Compared With Guided Imagery for Enhancing the Impact of Progressive Muscle Relaxation Training: Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR mental health · 2024Trial
- Bringing the Green Environment From Outdoors to Indoors Through Virtual Reality for Psychological Well-Being: Quasi-Experimental Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Effects of Digital Nature Interventions on Positive Psychological Outcomes: A Scoping Review.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- An Exploratory Investigation of the Influence of Setting and Meaning on Emotion Responses to Virtual Reality Environments.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Virtual Nature, Metaverse, and NAD⁺: A Narrative Review for Health Planning and Healthy Ageing.Health science reports · 2026Article
- Effects of Virtual Nature Embodiment on Compassion, Empathy, Nature Connectedness, and Symptom Burden in Patients With Psychosis or Depression: An Explorative Clinical Study.JMIR serious games · 2026Article
- Effects of virtual nature scenes and imagery dialogue intervention on academic anxiety in college students.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- How virtual urban green spaces influence stress and risk-taking.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Virtual nature, real relief: how exposure to virtual natural environments reduces anxiety, stress, and depression in healthy adults.NPJ digital medicine · 2025Article
- Are Virtual Forests Just for Relaxation, or Can They Enhance the Benefits of Therapy?Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Contributing Factors to the Rise in Adolescent Anxiety and Associated Mental Health Disorders: A Narrative Review of Current Literature.Journal of child and adolescent psychiatric nursing : official publication of the Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nurses, Inc · 2025Review
- Virtual nature and well-being: Exploring the potential of 360° VR.Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2025Article
- Contrasting cognitive, behavioral, and physiological responses to breathwork vs. naturalistic stimuli in reflective chamber and VR headset environments.PLOS mental health · 2025Article
- More relaxing than nature? The impact of ASMR content on psychological and physiological measures of parasympathetic activity.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2025Article
- Nature imagery's influence on ERN amplitude: an examination of Attention Restoration Theory using EEG.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
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- Exploring the effect of different typical plant community on human stress reduction: a field experiment.Scientific reports · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Exposure to natural environments offers an array of mental health benefits. Virtual reality provides simulated experiences of being in nature when outdoor access is limited. Previous studies on virtual nature have focused mainly on single "doses" of virtual nature. The effects of repeated exposure remain poorly understood. Motivated by this gap, we studied the influence of a daily virtual nature intervention on symptoms of anxiety, depression, and an underlying cause of poor mental health: rumination. Forty college students (58% non-Hispanic White, median age = 19) were recruited from two U.S. universities and randomly assigned to the intervention or control group. Over several weeks, anxious arousal (panic) and anxious apprehension (worry) decreased with virtual nature exposure. Participants identifying as women, past VR users, experienced with the outdoors, and engaged with the beauty in nature benefited particularly strongly from virtual nature. Virtual nature did not help symptoms of anhedonic depression or rumination. Further research is necessary to distinguish when and for whom virtual nature interventions impact mental health outcomes.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.